Biblical Illiteracy

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ServusDei1

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How do we eliminate Biblical Illiteracy among the church?
 
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Consider Bible Study groups as other Christain denominations do. Yes, we Catholics have them, too, but you don’t hear much about them.
 
Bible study groups, faith formation type classes for adults - cradle Catholics who want to know more about what the Catholic Church teaches. Encourage everyone to read the Bible, Catechism, and church fathers, church history. Don’t rely on “someone told me…”
 
First of all, find out why people no longer read the Bible

Second, why its not that popular in schools anymore

Third its no good reading the Bible unless reading with the correct lens, so teach people to do that
 
Become a member at the Institute of Catholic Culture. It’s free to join and there are over 800 hours of archived videos on everything from the Saints, history, Liturgy, theology and much more! There are also free webinars. You could easily start are class at your Parish and us the ICC as a resource.

ZP
 
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Start getting your kids comfortable with Bible Study from a young age. Same thing with new believers. You just have to make studying the word as the norm within your community of faith.
 
There’s Bible illiteracy among everyone. 🙂

I was subbing at the local public high school. The kids were doing a study hall, and one of them was working on her English lit class. I don’t remember if the assignment was the gospel exactly, or if it just made reference to the parable, but one of the girls was so confused because she had no clue what “the prodigal son” referred to. So I had to give her the basic summary of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

50 years ago, that sort of thing would have been floating around in the “everyone knows that” category of common knowledge, whether you read the Bible or not. Just like you know the basics about Walden Pond, even if you can’t name five facts about American Transcendentalism. Or you know the basics about the Bill of Rights, even if you don’t know the Tenth Amendment off the top of your head. Or you know Moby Dick was a whale, even if you haven’t actually read Melville.

I forgive people for not knowing who Jebul was, or Joash, or Othniel, without having to look up a Google search. 🙂

But it’s a definite cultural shift in general, although there’s no excuse for Catholics to not have a basic understanding of the basics.
 
We have Christlife, 2 Bible Studies, and Adult Formation (Scripture reading). We’ve had Formation on Translation and Interpretation. It takes awhile.
 
Give away free New Testaments or simply a free Gospel of St. John to anyone who wants one. When people who are curious start reading, they just might get interested in learning more. (I mean, don’t embarrass them by handing out New Testaments, but maybe have a stack of them free for the taking near the front door of the church).

Give them links to online Bibles they can read, and good Catholic Bible teachers, so they can listen to podcasts or streaming audio. Maybe add a webpage or RSS feed to a parish’s existing website with links to recommended online resources.

Give them a way to get their questions answered, like maybe a weekly, biweekly or monthly Bible discussion at a local coffee shop. (A church in my community does this and calls it Brew Theology.)

Give them local parish discussion content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et. al. Enlist well grounded Catholics of your parish to post content and respond to replies, especially young Catholics, as teens are looking for causes to work for together.

Give them the links to forums like this and tell them to say hi when they stop by!
 
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I’d be very careful if you don’t want the church to lose yet more members, there’s a reason we atheists are fond of Isaac Asimov’s quote about it.

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”

As an atheist who is currently grinding my way through the Bible, I have to say he’s right on about that.
 
@ServusDei1 Not really, if you read it cover to cover it starts falling apart fairly quickly. Gen 1 and Gen 2 for example.
 
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I have to ask what you mean by ‘the correct lens’ surely if the Bible is the word of god that should be self evident with only a surface glance.
 
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